WARNING: The audio file contained in this story includes words I have definitely never spoken on the radio. Parental Discretion Advised.
In 1999 my pal Pat Adriance moved out here to Nebraska to join me in the radio business, taking the position of FM Programming Coordinator. Not too long after his arrival, our boss decided our off-air shenanigans should become on-air shenanigans–and Pat co-hosted my morning show one day and later two days a week.
Before that happened, we did our own radio show on a website called Give Me Talk, an early podcasting hub. We did a talk show once a week and at least once were a “featured show” on the front page. Most weeks we did the show “live” in one continuous recording session, presenting a topic and debating on it.
But one of our shows was a heavily produced-and-edited affair, which began with me watching DVR’ed reruns of “TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes.” Side note: I have to wonder how much it cost the cable network (TNN, after it switched the first N from “Nashville” to “National”) to buy the rights to “Bloopers and Practical Jokes” reruns? Like 87 cents a throw?
Anyway, one day I was playing back an episode and there was a practical joke involving Julius Erving…Dr. J.
(Dr. J was my nickname on college radio at Adirondack and Brockport…many old friends still call me Dr. J but “Wenty” is edging out. But back when this happened I was still Dr. J to most.)
So Pat and I did a “Bloopers and Practical Jokes” show. The bloopers are actual, uncensored outtakes from commercial recording sessions. The practical joke is…well, I love it. The editing between stuff Pat and I recorded and audio from the Julius Erving joke is pretty decent, especially considering this was pre-Cool Edit, pre-Adobe Audition.
The Give Me Talk website went dead over 15 years ago. As far as I know “Bloopers and Practical Jokes” is the only show we did that survives. Unlike our talk shows, we produced this at the radio station (on a Saturday!) and it had to be dumped onto a cassette because (this was 1999 remember) there was no easy way to transmit it from the radio station computer to my home computer. The cassette survived and has been digitized. And here it is: